Audi eclipses Porsche in final WEC practice

A last-minute charge by Andre Lotterer put Audi top in the final practice session for this weekend's 6 Hours of Spa, narrowly ahead of Porsche.

Lotterer left the best until last, setting the fastest ever WEC lap around the Belgian circuit in the final moments with a 1m57.368s.

That left the number #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro at the top of the timesheets by just 0.011s, ahead of the #19 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Force India Formula 1 driver Nico Hulkenberg.

Nick Tandy initially starred in the 60-minute session. The Brit, who is making his LMP1 debut this weekend, set a succession of rapid laps to head the regular #18 and #17 Porsches to temporarily lock out the top three positions.

In the first dry conditions of the meeting, Tandy peaked with a 1m57.396s, which beat the previous fastest lap – a 1m58.934s, set by Lucas Di Grassi in 2013.

Di Grassi set the fourth fastest time in the #8 Audi he shares with Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis.

Toyota continued to re-group after the dramas of Nakajima’s accident yesterday. The Japanese manufacturer placed sixth and seventh in the session with the #2 TS 040 HYBRID just outpacing the re-built #1 car.

G-Drive returned to the top of the LMP2 times in the dry running, with Sam Bird setting a best lap of 2m08.415s in the #26 Ligier-Nissan. The winners of the previous round at Silverstone enjoyed a 0.4s advantage over the KCMG ORECA-Nissan of Nicolas Lapierre, Matt Howson and Richard Bradley.